Photograph by: Ward Perrin
, Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER — Not so long ago, people were fretting that the art auction market was about to take a big tumble.

No more. This month’s sales of contemporary and impressionist art at Sotheby’s and Christie’s in New York brought in a staggering $1.2 billion US, led by the record-breaking $119 million paid for Edvard Munch’s The Scream.

The international art market is far different from Canada’s, where the record price remains the $5 million paid for a Paul Kane painting. But the buzz coming from New York can’t help but bode well for the Heffel auction of Canadian art on May 17 at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

“A strong market gives people confidence,” states Robert Heffel, who runs the auction with his brother David.

The pre-sale estimate for the sale is $9 million to $12 million, but the final result should be much higher, because there are multiple lots from top-selling artists. There are 10 paintings by Lawren Harris, eight by Emily Carr, seven by Jean-Paul Lemieux, seven by E.J. Hughes, five by Edwin Holgate and four by Paul-Emile Borduas among the 185 lots. All are on display at the Heffel Gallery, 2247 Granville, from Saturday through Wednesday.

The Heffels were having a lot of fun hanging the preview earlier this week.

“Once we get them all hung up and see them together like this, it’s really exciting,” says Robert Heffel.

“It’s like going to a museum, but the admission’s free. And they’re paintings that haven’t been seen in public for 20, 30, even 100 years, because they’re in private collections.”

The highest estimates belong to Carr’s Eagle Totem and Holgate’s Great Bug Pond, Cache River, at $600,000 to $800,000.

Eagle Totem is just that — a striking, iconic oil of an eagle totem pole in a lush forest. It was painted in 1930, at the height of Carr’s artistic power.

“One of the rarest treasures in Canadian art is a mature-period Emily Carr oil on canvas with First Nations subject matter,” says Robert Heffel.

“It has contrast, it has strong colours and then it has the white triangle, which is very modernist. We sold it in 2001 [for $436,500], and it’s come back for sale from the United States.”

Still, it may not be the top selling Carr at the auction. War Canoes, Alert Bay is a gorgeous watercolour from 1908 that Carr used as the basis for a landmark 1912 oil painting of the same name.

The 1912 oil was the first Carr painting to sell for a million dollars in 2000. It was purchased by local collector Michael Audain, and was recently displayed at the Vancouver Art Gallery as part of the Audain collection.

The Heffels have estimated the watercolour at $300,000 to $500,000. This is probably on the conservative side — Heffel sold a similar 1908 watercolour, War Canoe, for $1.228 million last fall.

In 1929, Edwin Holgate became the eighth or ninth member of the Group of Seven, depending on how you look at it (Frank Johnston had left the Group and been replaced by A.J. Casson).

Great Bug Pond, Cache River is a landscape from 1939, and is so bright and colourful the light almost seems to radiate out of the painting.

The painting is very important to the Heffels — it was a key lot in their first auction in 1995, where it sold for $76,000.

“It was a pivotal consignment for us,” says David Heffel. “That was our first sale, the first time out of the gate. It was [almost] 10 per cent of our first sale. Our goal was to do a million dollars [for an entire sale] within the first five years, and we got lucky and did it the first time.”

Another Holgate, Canadian Minesweeper, East Coast (est. $250,000 to $350,000) was painted in 1941, when Holgate was one of Canada’s official war artists.

Virtually all war artist paintings are owned by the federal government and are in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. But there are two war artist paintings in this sale — Heffel is also selling E.J. Hughes’ After a Movie, on Kiska in 1943. The black-and-white graphite-on-card work is estimated at $25,000 to $35,000.

“The story I heard, I think from Hughes, is that when they were decommissioned, the artists were allowed to keep a few pieces,” says David Heffel.

“I think also Hughes made a comment that not only was he allowed to keep some of the works, but the materials. Canvas was a rationed item during the war, so the ability for him to leave with a roll of canvas was instrumental in him being able to produce those great 1940s canvases.”

There are several top-notch E.J. Hughes paintings for sale, including Englewood (from 1951, est. $250,000 to $350,000), a classic Hughes B.C. scene of a cove with a dock, fish boats, logs, a mill, houses, forest and mountains.

There is also a delightful 1951 painting of The Nanaimo Bastion, one of B.C.’s most storied structures (est. $200,000 to $300,000).

“I find this painting really interesting,” says David Heffel. “It’s a bit of Hughes’ response to abstraction and minimalism. You see this hard-edged building [on the left] that lies up against a fairly traditionally composed artwork.”

At the Heffel auction last fall in Toronto, a Jean-Paul Lemieux painting sold for $2.34 million, the first time Lemieux had cracked the magic million-dollar mark.

This tends to bring paintings to the market, and on Thursday, the Heffels will be auctioning off seven more Lemieux paintings, including La plage americaine, which is estimated at $500,000 to $700,000.

Painted in 1973, it’s a lovely beach scene with three figures, including a beautiful young woman in a floppy white hat that David Heffel thinks is “in a dreamy world all of her own.” In the background, a kid flies a kite, reinforcing the relaxed mood.

Calling it the American beach could be construed as a subtle political statement, because a year later Lemieux sent it to Russia for an exhibition.

“[Think about] the audience seeing this painting and thinking about life in America, and then their life in Russia ... it’s interesting, don’t you think?” says Robert Heffel. “In a way, this probably represented freedom to them.”

The painting comes from the same Montreal estate that is selling a second Lemieux work, Le mois de juin (est. $350,000 to $450,000).

“They were early patrons of Lemieux,” explains David Heffel. “The opportunity to acquire these works really came from their friendship with the artist.

Several recent Heffel auctions have included works from the collection of the late Theodesia Dawes Thornton of Montreal. This time, there are three Lawren Harris paintings from her unique collection — she literally had a closet full of Lawren Harris paintings.

“I think she had 24 works by Lawren Harris,” says David Heffel.

“She told me she wrote Harris a letter when she first discovered his work as a young woman in Ottawa. She finally inherited some money and wanted to get one of his works, but by that time she was living in Montreal, and no one in Montreal was selling his work.

“She tracked him down and wrote him a letter saying ‘I’d love to buy one of your pieces, but I don’t want to have to go to Toronto to buy it. Where can I get one?’

“A package arrived a few weeks later with three panels in it, and a letter saying ‘Pick the one you like, send the other two back with a cheque for $350’ or whatever it was. So she sent him a cheque for all three.”

Two of the three Harris paintings owned by Thornton (Algoma Sketch and Northern Sketch) have an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000. The third, Mountain Sketch, is estimated at $80,000 to $120,000.